Sentences

While explaining the chocking con, Victor says "It's okay to cry as long as you're faking it." I just love that he is saying the entire point of the trick is to ACT helpless and weak, but if you're legitimately crying because you almost died, thats not okay. Along with the tone and context it just makes it seem like he's gonna hunt you down and revoke your privilege to do the con if you're gonna be a pansy about it.

Choke #1

This week I started the book "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk. I have wanted to read this book ever since I heard he was the guy who wrote Fight Club, which is one of the most "bro" movies of all time. So with my expectations of quality set to messianic levels, I began my reading. Right off the bat he started the book with one of my biggest pet peeves, the infamous "HERP DERP YOU SHOULD TOTALLY NOT READ THIS BOOK HERP DERP" line that is supposed to further arouse my interest in reading this piece of literature. The problem I have with this approach is that it has been so overused, it makes me believe that the author read one R.L. Stine book when he was nine years old and got it imprinted in his brain that this is the only way an author can introduce a story to his audience. However, once I painstakingly read through this embarrassing display of the author's lack of imagination and introductory prowess, there was actually quite an interesting novel underneath. The story is told in a very interesting manner as well. It begins in a 3rd person omniscient point of view, but once it starts getting into the first real chapters it is told from a first person point of view. On top of this, the author is not afraid to take the risk of jumping into a new setting at the beginning of a chapter without introducing the setting first. He does it in such a way that it feels much like a movie segueing into a new scene by being zoomed in on the character's face and giving a short monologue before zooming out to reveal the character's new location. I can see why this effect was used so many times in the "Fight Club" movie, the director must have also gotten the same feel from Palahniuk's style while reading that book. Enough about the writing style, the characters in this are very well developed and very interesting. The main character, Victor  Mancini, is a very interesting man. It turns out he is a recovering sex addict trying to make his way through his twelve step program. In addition, he is trying to hold a minimum wage job as an 18th century indentured servant in one of those colonial american re-creation towns. You know, the kind that middle schools force kids to go to on their 5th grade field trips or else the students have to stay back and do some ridiculous homework packet. To make his life even better he is currently forking over $3000 a month to a mental hospital that is holding his mother. Oh, I forgot to mention that his mother has gone to prison countless times over the years and habitually broken out, just to find Victor and essentially kidnap him. However those days are done, and she is now a deathly ill $3000 a month burden for Victor. As you can imagine, its somewhat difficult to come up with $3000 when you make minimum wage, so Victor acquires money through a strategy that gives the book its name. He goes into restaurants and causes himself to choke and simultaneously creates a big scene out of it. Then,he waits for some guy to emerge from the crowd to come to his rescue. When these "heroes" dislodge the ball of semi digested food from his throat, they feel like a God. This is a feeling that they never want to end, they console Victor afterwards, and then often pay for his meal because he made them feel so heroic. After the whole fiasco is finished and everyone parts ways, the "hero" will feel the needs to take care of Victor because he has saved his life. They administer this care giving by sending Victor cards regularly and around Christmas time that usually contain checks or cash, just to make sure he is on his on two feet again.

Finally, I'd like to rap this post up with one of my favorite quotes from this book. While explaining the chocking con, Victor says "It's okay to cry as long as you're faking it." I just love that he is saying the entire point of the trick is to ACT helpless and weak, but if you're legitimately crying because you almost died, thats not okay. Along with the tone and context it just makes it seem like he's gonna hunt you down and revoke your privilege to do the con if you're gonna be a pansy about it.